The Five Values

Chris Bowers takes a stab at coming up with Ten Words that describe his political beliefs. I'd like to reduce it even further to what I call the Five Values:

Tolerance, Freedom, Opportunity, Mobility, Democracy

(All with an implied "more" before each one).

(1) Tolerance. I prefer this word to the more common "Diversity" because the latter implies a program of active promotion of diversity (i.e., "forcing" people to interact with people they don't normally interact with), whereas "Tolerance" simply means that we want a society that is open to diverse opinions and ways of living while not making people feel guilty if they would prefer to just hang out with people more like themselves.

(2) Freedom. A rather broad value, but at its core is the idea that people should be encouraged in the expression of their individual Freedom. We don't want a society where people feel inhibited from expressing their opinions about the important topics of the day or from acting on those opinions in order to affect positive change.

(3) Opportunity. The people's opportunity to fulfill their dreams and aspirations should be maximized. It is a tragedy, for the person and for society, when a person cannot achieve success simply because they are never given the opportunity to succeed.

(4) Mobility. Related to Opportunity, but this deals more with increasing the opportunities people have to make their lives better. The opportunities people have to raise their status in life.

(5) Democracy. Specifically, Liberal Democracy, which is founded on the idea that the people are the sovereign and, as such, all governing philosophies should ultimately defer to the will of the people. Our representatives hold our proxy, but they are never our rulers.

Naturally, all five of these values come into conflict with each other. Maximizing Tolerance does not mean eliminating people's Freedom to associate or not associate with whomever they please. Maximizing Freedom does not mean letting people's personal desires forever block the Opportunity of others to get what they want. And so on.

It is in the balancing act between these values that our society can achieve greatness (if a good balance is found) or failure (if it is not).

I could write pages and pages on these. Just consider this a rough outline for now.

Way out

Digby addresses the Tomasky piece. He applauds it, but he also expresses reservations that it isn't complete enough. I was particular struck by the following comment:

I don't mean to be dismissive. I think it's important to embrace big ideas and big philosophy and reach for some inspiration. The Democrats have been issuing stultifying laundry lists for as long as I can remember and I couldn't be happier that people are thinking in these terms. But I can't help but feel that we always end up back at the same spot somehow. The unions, the womens groups, the civil rights groups, trial lawyers, consumer advocates --- the whole array of narrow special interests being held responsible for the fact that half of this country really resents the hell out of minorities, women and working people getting a fair shake. And the Democrats continue to pay the political price for that resentment.

I'm all for finding our way out of it. Tomasky's message has real resonance; I like it very much. But I think that if the party stopped trying to figure out ways to get the "special interests" to shut up and started giving them some respectful assurances that they aren't going to be the sacrificial lambs in whatever the new paradigm turns out to be, they might find a little bit more cooperation.

Digby is looking for a way out of the conundrum he describes. Well, what if there isn't a way out? What if that contradiction that he so ably describe is inherent in the kind of "common good" political philosophy that Tomasky describes?

What if, instead of looking for a "way out" of the problem, we simply embrace it as part of the load we have to bear for working for a better world?

There is no magic formula that will allow all the disparate interests that make up the Democratic coalition to work together in peace and harmony. There will always be conflicts. What we need to do is understand that the existance of those conflicts does not require that the coalition shatter.

Stop looking for a way out. Start looking for a way up.

Time for a do-over

On a related note, I give you this comment from Atrios, also inspired by the aforementioned Tomasky article:

One of Bush's biggest failures (and, yes, it's a very long list) both for country and for himself and his political party was to fail to genuinely tap into the uniting post-9/11 spirit. To use his lame expression, he decided to be a divider, not a uniter, and failed to transform American politics in a way which quite likely would've led to Republican domination for decades.

I can remember in the waning months of the Clinton administration a lot of talking heads bemoaning the "lost opportunities" of that administration; lost because Clinton couldn't keep it in his pants.

That kind of loss pales in comparison to the monumental failure of Bush to transform the tragedy of 9/11 with an inspiring leadership that would have united not just America but the World. The outpouring of good will towards the United States was monumental in the days following that tragedy. We all remember the French paper LaMonde with its half page headline proclaiming, "We are All Americans", right?

All of that is gone. Utterly gone. Pissed to the four winds as a result of Bush's mismanagement and hubris.

Is it time for a do-over? Is it time to roll back the clock to September 12th, 2001 and call for a real program of shared sacrifice for the "Greater Good"?

Can we just pretend that the last five years never happened?

Facing The Tiger

Hat tip to Kos for pointing us to this article by Michael Tomasky on what the philosophy of the Democratic Party is. I haven't read the article in full, but from Kos's comments it sounds like Tomasky is urging political leaders to start returning to the rhetoric of "The Greater Good"; the idea that citizens need to think beyond themselves when making political decisions about their future.

I think "The Greater Good" could prove a powerful motivator in the coming years. Just as it has so often in our past, especially in times of trouble.

The truly selfish individuals, the people who couldn't give a damn about their fellow man, are a rare breed. They just happen to be very focused in getting what they want and that focus gives them a disproportionate share of the attention. Their volume far exceeds their numbers.

It is my firm belief that the vast majority of Americans, Democrat and Republican, just want what is best for their country, their community and their family. They aren't in it just to advance themselves.

They care.

But caring has been given a bad name by those who want us to believe that the only viable way of achieving success and security is to "look out for #1".

I've often thought that what is needed today is a program of shared sacrifice similar to what we saw during the Great Depression and World War II. During the last great war the government asked a lot of its citizenry and that citizenry was more than happy to oblige. Why? Because they felt the call to work towards the Greater Good.

We are at war. At least that is what Bush likes to tell us. So why, if we are at war, have Americans not been asked to sacrifice for the Greater Good of their country? What did Bush ask of Americans after 9/11? He asked them to go shopping! He asked them to go to Disneyland!

His message was simple: you don't have to sacrifice anything in this time of trouble. Just go about your lives as if everything were the same. And don't worry, I'll defend your tax cuts to my dying breath.

Bush utterly failed to rally this country toward the goal of addressing this present crisis. He saw it as just another opportunity to advance his predetermined agenda.

The conventional wisdom among the political elite is that asking for sacrifice from the electorate is political suicide (look at the way Dean's tax plans were excorciated in 2004). That wisdom is the very thing that is holding us back from achieving greatness. It is a wisdom that says that everyone should just act in their own self-interest and damn their neighbors to the suicide bombs and hurricane floods. It is a wisdom tailor-made to increase voter apathy ("Why should I vote? The politicians just waste my money anyway!")

Bush's philosophy is that of the man who tells his companion, when both are running away from the tiger, that he doesn't have to outrun the tiger. He just has to outrun his friend.

It's time to turn and face the tiger.

Why should we care what the terrorists think?

The apologists for this administration keep coming back to this tired rhetorical point. Case in point, this Washington Post op-ed, "Why Are They Speaking Up Now?", authored by Melvin Laird and Robert E. Pursley. Laird was a Republican congressman before becoming Nixon's Secretary of Defense. Pursley served in the Air Force and was the military assistant to three secretaries of defense (McNamara, Clifford, and Laird). They are the latest to come to the defense of Donald Rumsfeld against the generals who have called for his resignation.

[E]ach of them speaks from his own copse of trees and may not have a view of the larger forest. In criticizing those with the broader view, they should be mindful of the risks and responsibilities inherent in their acts. The average U.S. citizen has high respect for the U.S. military. That respect is a valuable national security asset. Criticism, when carried too far, risks eroding it.

We do not advocate a silencing of debate on the war in Iraq. But care must be taken by those experienced officers who had their chance to speak up while on active duty. In speaking out now, they may think they are doing a service by adding to the reasoned debate. But the enemy does not understand or appreciate reasoned public debate. It is perceived as a sign of weakness and lack of resolve.

We've heard this same tune a multitude of times in the last four years. Yet those who play it never explain why we should give a damn if the terrorist "does not understand or appreciate reasoned public debate".

So, because our enemies are irrational thugs, we should be careful not to give them any examples of how a modern society can survive and thrive when "reasoned public debate" is encouraged? So, because they have no respect for the principle that freedom of dissent is what makes us strong, we should curtail that freedom lest they get the wrong idea.

Why are we letting the opinions of the terrorists dictate how we run our society?